


Please, sleep on my bed!

by xama



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 00:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13822962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xama/pseuds/xama
Summary: Maes has most people at the military academy figured out, but not Envy. They've managed to keep themselves to themselves. Maes admits he is a little bit obsessed, and maybe that made him a little reckless in accepting their offer. Or maybe it was because of the sleep deprivation. Hopefully it wouldn't be a fatal decision, but the mattress is too comfortable for Maes to care.





	Please, sleep on my bed!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nival_kenival](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nival_kenival/gifts).



> Happy birthday Niall! Many happy returns, have a little fic that probably isn't going to stay a one-shot!  
> It's... not as good as the summary may make it sound!

Maes stretched his arms over his head, and sighed; ever since he’d been singled out for officer’s training, his life at the military academy had gotten even harder. That isn’t to say that Maes didn’t appreciate that the work was necessary, it wasn’t even that Maes didn’t enjoy the work; it’s that he no longer had time to hang out. Maes had always been good at whatever he set out to do, but his real passion was people. Watching people, figuring out what made them tick, why they did what they did, talking to them – all of it, he loved it. He even joined the military because he loved people – and he knew that, whatever their ultimate goals were, the military was hurting the Amestrian people, and all their neighbors. And he wanted to stop it.

So he slogged on, he did his work, he didn’t complain; he pined in silence for his friends, for his family, and for the random strangers at the bar who needed a shoulder to cry on.

The closest Maes got to human contact these days was with his peers, in classes or in the mess hall. There was that serious-looking Mustang, who Maes knew was dangerous, and also possibly a kindred spirit. There was Armstrong, who was almost done even though she had only been attending for a year, and, if rumors could be believed, once picked up and threw a jeep at a perverted colonel. And then there was this kid with long, green hair, and golden eyes.

Mustang and Armstrong, Maes could understand. The three of them were similar, in a way. They all wanted change, and were willing to face hell to do it. Most of the others in officer training either loved the military and wanted to share in their beloved Father Land’s glory, or just liked killing. There were a few that had joined to be able to get food on the table, but they usually hadn’t been able to get the kind of education that was required, and started off as foot soldiers.

But Envy, Maes just couldn’t get a read on them. They seemed relatively easy-going, they had a lot of friends, and every week they received a letter from home. But they were also clearly not bothered by violence, nor were they a sadist, and they were entirely too smart to believe that Amestris was this paradise-on-earth like those leading the country wanted everyone to believe. But on the other hand, they didn’t have the same determination that Armstrong, Mustang, and Maes himself had. They had good grades – phenomenal, even, although they claimed their younger brothers could do better – but they didn’t have that fire in their eyes.

Envy was truly a mystery, and any inquiries were deflected, sometimes subtly, sometimes not. If pressed, Maes would admit he grew a little bit obsessed – it didn’t help that Envy had truly remarkable eyes, and could lift almost as much as Armstrong.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it was Envy that made the first move.

It was midnight, Maes had late-night training, and he was beat. He just wanted to eat something and sleep for a thousand years. But as he was shoveling something vaguely disgusting into his mouth, Envy pulled up a chair next to him.

“Oatmeal, pickles, and sauerkraut? Does that actually taste good?”

Maes looked down at what he was eating, and sighed “no,” then continued eating the slop.

“...Alright, how about you throw that away and go out to an early breakfast with me?”

“Breafa?” Maes slurred, mouth full, and still pretty sleepy.

“...it’s 4 am, how long did they keep you out last night?”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday?”

Maes half-stood up, “How long DID they keep me up?!”

Envy shook their head, laughing, “No, no, don’t worry! It’s only Tuesday!”

Maes fell back to his seat, groaning. “Now you’ve put me off my ‘breakfast’.”

Envy stretched, “Ah well, my offer still stands!”

“Can I get a rain-check, I really need to sleep, and my roommate snores.”

Envy nodded, and then said “Wait, if your roommate snores, why don’t you wait until he wakes up?”

“Oh, I only sleep well when there’s a consistent sound in the background. He has to wake up at 5, so I should get started as soon as possible.”

Envy nodded again, and then got a… contemplative, probably, look on their face. “You know, I don’t have training or classes until 7 and I don’t have a roommate. Why don’t you sleep on my bed while I talk to you?”

“Yes! Absolutely! Thanks!”

Envy threw their head back, and laughed again. “That quickly? No questions about what’s in it for me?”

“Eh, you’re not the serial killer type, and I really need to sleep.” And Maes wanted to know more about Envy, and people tend to be more loose-lipped when they think they’re talking to someone who is asleep, or drunk (or both!)

“Fair enough, come on then.” Envy gestured for Maes to follow them, and then led the way to their room.

Oh, tiny. Must be the trade-off for not having a roommate. In Maes’ opinion, he got the better deal, more space, and another person. He had been partly lying about the snoring; it was true that it didn’t bother him, but the reason he like it wasn’t the noise itself, but the fact that it let him know there was someone else in the room with him. When he was a kid, he always had to have a cat or a dog in bed with him, or he couldn’t fall asleep. Now, as an almost-officer in the military, that wasn’t really an option; roommates and the occasional bedfellow were all he could hope for.

Envy moved a book off their bed, though they didn’t seem sheepish; their room was as messy as it could be, given cleanliness regulations and limited possessions. They didn’t say anything about it though, so Maes didn’t either. He noticed a framed picture of two kids, though.

“Those your brothers?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, Ed and Al! They’re great, little alchemic terrors; they stole dad’s notebooks and transmuted their bedroom and half the kitchen into a really ornate castle, dad was confused and a little proud, but Trisha was really thrilled at their skill. Said something about it running in her family.”

Oh, Envy was the type to ramble about their family, huh. A kindred spirit! Maes stretched out on the bed, and closed his eyes. “Trisha? She your mom?”

Envy shifted a little, probably. Or they pulled out their murder weapon, doesn’t really matter, Maes is comfortable, and Mustang would avenge him, probably. “Step-Mom, but she’s really great! Helped pull dad out of the funk he’d been in for about two hundred years, and she’s amazingly strong. I mean both in the sense that she’s tough mentally, and also she can lift a cow over her head...”

As Envy’s sentence drifted off, so did Maes. The last thing he heard before sleep fully took him was “...humans, you all have such short lives… but something about you just keeps drawing me back to care about you. Guess that’s how the old man feels, too...”


End file.
